


drawing lines in the sand

by acrobats



Series: jtbdayweek2019 [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Gen, Jason Todd is Robin, No proof reading we die like mne, jtbdayweek, jtbdayweek2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 10:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20190967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrobats/pseuds/acrobats
Summary: When Batman is injured, Nightwing and Robin have to patrol together. The only problem is that they can't stand each other.





	drawing lines in the sand

Jason scowled as he ran ahead, leaving Nightwing behind and leaping across to the next roof, landing into a roll. The jump was cutting it close – half a foot more and he wouldn’t have made it. It left him a little shaken, but he immediately took off running again and at least tried not to show it.

He went on like that for another minute or so, until suddenly he realized he couldn’t hear Nightwing’s footsteps echoing behind him anymore. He stopped, more annoyed than alarmed, wondering where he could have gone and why he didn’t tell Jason anything.

“Nightwing,” he murmured into his com, “where the hell are you?”

No response. Jason tried again.

“Nightwing. Nightwing, do you copy? Nightwing!”

Jason paced up and down the roof, feeling like an absolute moron with the way he was muttering to himself. What even was the procedure for this kind of thing? Bruce, for all his faults, had never gone AWOL on him before. Trust Nightwing to be a total dick about this, as he was about everything else.

“C’mon, ‘wing, ‘s not fuckin’ funny,” he whispered.

He whirled around, meaning to get to a higher point to try and locate Nightwing from there, but his search came to an abrupt end. As he turned, he came face to face with Nightwing, stoic and silent.

“Fuck!” he hissed, taking a step back in surprise. “What the hell, dipshit, don’t just stand there like a fucking horror movie creep, where were you?”

“Nearby,” Nightwing said, curt enough to pass as Batman. “Do you know how long it took you to notice I wasn’t behind you anymore? Two blocks.”

“Yeah, because I didn’t think I had to be on the lookout for you doing something as stupid as that, funny thing!” Jason protested, voice rising. “What was that about? A test or something? Give me a break. You’re not Batman.”

“And you’re –“ Nightwing took a deep breath, shaking his head. “That was what could happen if you keep trying to get as far away from your partner as possible. I could actually lose you, or in trying to keep up we could end up missing something important. What were you trying to prove to me? That you can run real fast? Congratulations.”

“Fuck you,” Jason spat out. “How fucking hard would it be to call out, ‘hey, Robin, slow down’, instead of pulling this pseudo-didactic BS?”

“It was a demonstration,” Nightwing said. “And sorry, but I very much doubt you would have listened to anything I had to say. You think you already know everything.”

“Try me!” Jason yelled, challenging. “Except you won’t, will you? You won’t give me a chance. B gets benched, and you say of course I’ll patrol with Jason in your stead –“

“No names in the field –“

"—we all know how fuckin’ useless he’d be on his own, amirite? So you come, but you gotta be a dick about it. I mean, jeez, if you can’t call me Robin without shedding a tear then even ‘hey you’ would do, but no. ‘Course not.”

"Meanwhile I suppose you had to keep a thirty feet distance between us because you were so excited about patrolling with me,” Dick countered, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Look, kid, we don’t have to get along. But what you’re doing makes it harder for me to save your ass if something happens, and I think we can agree Batman wouldn’t be happy about that.”

“Oh, well, so long as it would upset _Bruce_,” Jason scoffed. “Guess you really have no choice but to watch out for me then. Lemme make it easier for you; I’ll head back home, an’ you can patrol on your fuckin’ own.”

Without waiting for a response, Jason flung himself off the roof, shooting his hook at the very last moment and swinging away. Bruce would be pissed if he could see him, because it was a stupid risk to take, but the rush was exhilarating, and Jason needed something to calm his nerves. If he didn’t, he’d either go right back and yell at Nightwing for the next hour without pause, or he’d break down crying, neither of which he wanted.

“ROBIN!”

The scream pierced the air, startling Jason and making him look back up, just in time to see Nightwing leaping and swinging after him. There was a grace in his movements that Jason would never achieve, no matter how many times he did this, no matter how technically correct his form was. This was Nightwing in his element, where he lived and breathed, in that breathless moment before the crash. Jason swallowed the bile in his throat, feeling woefully insufficient.

“What the fuck was that?” Dick demanded, supressed fury in his voice. He exhaled shakily and gathered himself – suddenly he looked terrifyingly calm. “Cave. Now. No detours, no fancy tricks, if you so much as think about doing something like that again I will carry you back kicking and screaming, so don’t you fucking try it. Go. Now.”

Jason bit back a sharp retort and took off, all the while wondering what the hell he’d done to get that kind of reaction. Dick had been pissed at him before, and pretty consistently, but this was something else. This was the kind of calm that could only possibly come before a storm. If Jason was to weather it, he’d much rather do it in the presence of Bruce and Alfred.

* * *

Just because Bruce was benched from the field, didn’t mean that any force in the world could keep him away from the cave. He was down there with Alfred, prepared to do ground control if need be. As much as they couldn’t agree on anything else, neither Dick nor Jason wanted Bruce to intervene, so they mentioned nothing on the way back nor after they arrived.

“It was pretty quiet,” Dick said cheerfully, and Jason had to marvel at his acting skills. “No point staying out more.”

“Hmm,” Bruce said. “Jason?”

Jason didn’t miss the hurt flashing across Dick’s face, but he nodded. “Yeah, like ‘Wing said. I’ve had more exciting nights studying algebra.”

“Alright.” Bruce turned to Dick again. “Thank you. For filling in.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it,” Dick murmured.

And if that had been all, maybe they could have ignored it and moved on. But Bruce’s injury meant he’d be out of commission for at least two more nights. One had already nearly been disastrous, and Jason was still waiting for Dick to lash out at him after whatever that had been on patrol. How were they supposed to do this twice more? They would get nothing done.

And they were supposed to be helping Bruce, not making his job harder with fights and petty shit. It was all Dick’s fault. Where did he get off, not even bothering to hide how little regard he had for Jason, and then thinking it was his right to boss him around? No.

Jason changed out of his costume and headed right up to bed, wanting to avoid a possible confrontation. But not ten minutes had passed when there came a knock on the door, the pattern fitting neither Alfred nor Bruce. Whatever Dick thought of him, Jason was smart, and Bruce had taught him to recognize this kind of thing.

He lay still and pretended to be asleep, making no sound, barely breathing. If he didn’t respond maybe Dick would just go away.

“Jason,” Dick called out. “There’s no way you’re sleeping, open the door. We need to sort this out.”

Jason debated refusing to do it, but Dick would eventually find a way in, and the longer Jason stalled him, the angrier he’d be. He got up and opened the door, acknowledging Dick with a nod and stepping aside to let him through.

Dick stayed standing up, but Jason positioned himself strategically at his desk, and said nothing. If Dick wanted to talk so bad, then he’d have to do the heavy lifting.

“You’ll probably take this the wrong way,” Dick said. “But I can’t take you on patrol tomorrow if you’re gonna do what you did tonight again.”

"You can’t take me on patrol?” Jason echoed, disbelieving. “You couldn’t in the first place. You’re not Batman. You don’t even live in Gotham. It’s not your call whether I go or not. And what the hell is your problem, anyway? I don’t understand why you’re so pissed off about me going ahead, Jesus, do you need a promise I’ll follow at your heels tomorrow? ‘Cause then you can forget about it.”

"Do you really think that's what this is about?” Dick snarled. “You were purposely going further than I could reach you in time if anything happened, you were pulling reckless move after reckless move –“

“I was SHOWING OFF!” Jason bellowed. “Happy now? That what you wanted to hear? I know I’ll never be at the level of Dick Grayson, probably born mid-air, but I was dumb enough to think I could impress you! And then maybe you wouldn’t hate my guts so fucking much!”

"I don’t – that’s not –” Dick stared at him, wide-eyed, and for once with no clever retort. Then, with effort, he managed, “That last fall, when you said you were going back – that wasn’t about impressing anyone. It was needless and dangerous, and I know you would have never done it if Bruce could see you.”

Jason threw his hands in the air. “Uh, yeah, duh. Bruce worries. Too much. And he can be an asshole about it. But you don’t give a shit about me, so how was I supposed to know you’d freak out?”

"I don’t – I don’t want you to get hurt,” Dick protested. “How much of an asshole do you think I am?”

“More of a dick, really,” Jason muttered with a shrug, and to his surprise Dick let out a chuckle. “I wasn’t, like…I knew what I was doing. I’m not completely hopeless at this, you know?”

"No, you’re not,” Dick agreed. “You’re doing…phenomenally. You should hear how Bruce talks about you. He’s probably not gonna tell you to your face when he’s proud, but it’s…yeah.”

“Is that the problem?” Jason asked. “That I’m good?”

“No,” Dick said with a shake off his head and a bitter smile. “It might be…I’m not happy with any of this, yeah, but it’s not for the reasons you imagine. Do you know…do you know what Robin is?”

“Robin is Batman’s partner,” Jason answered instantaneously, and then frowned, feeling like he’d failed some sort of test.

“He didn’t create it,” Dick said. “Bruce. I did. Robin was my mom’s nickname for me. The costume –ridiculous thing, right? – that was inspired by the Flying Graysons’ outfits.”

“Shit,” Jason breathed, feeling like someone had emptied a bucket of cold water over his head. “Shit. I didn’t know. No wonder, though, that you don’t like me. Huh.”

“It’s not really your fault,” Dick admitted, running a hand through his hair. “And I’m definitely through with Robin, I couldn’t go back, but it doesn’t feel like it was his right to give it away. That’s all.”

Jason looked away. He sympathised, except that Robin was the second best thing to ever happen to him, and he didn’t want to give it up. Especially when the first could very well be dependent on it. He ought to offer, at least, but he was too scared that Dick would take him up on it.

“I’m sorry,” he said instead.

“You’re not the one I need an apology from,” Dick sighed. Suddenly he looked tired and much older than his eighteen years; he closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands, leaning against the wall. “They fell, you know.”

“What?”

“My parents. Bruce never told you that, either? A mobster burned the trapeze wires with acid and they plunged to their deaths. I was too young to take part in that show, but – I saw it. So do you understand?” he asked, glancing at Jason with a melancholy smile. “Being here, watching you, it already makes me think about…everything. And then I see you jump off a building, and I wait and I wait and you’re not firing your grappling hook. You have no idea how much you scared me.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Jason murmured.

“I know.”

There was a pregnant pause. Jason found it almost impossible to stay mad at Dick after the bomb he’d dropped. All Jason had known was that Dick was a former circus kid and that his parents were dead. Bruce hadn’t given him more details, and he hadn’t asked for them. He only knew Nightwing, infuriating and impossible to keep up with – he’d never thought about Dick Grayson, Jason’s age or younger, grieving, just taken in by a billionaire. He’d never thought about Dick’s whys and hows.

"Do you want to know what Robin meant to me?” he asked, hesitant, worried that it was the wrong thing to say. But Dick nodded. “Robin’s a kid. That’s the whole point. He’s never as big or as strong as the bad guys. But he wins, and it’s not because of Batman. He can fight back. He can – we all wanted to be Robin. The street kids, I mean. And before that, the kids in my neighborhood. Batman was cool, yes, he was Gotham’s protector, but Robin? He was _ours_. Or it felt like it.”

But he was Dick’s first, Jason thought now, and he hadn’t stopped to consider that.

"So you thought Robin was cooler than Batman?” Dick asked, a teasing tilt to his voice, and Jason was grateful for the lighter turn.

“Yeah,” he said. “For the record, Nightwing is pretty cool, too.”

Dick laughed and unexpectedly ruffled Jason’s hair. “And so is Robin, then and now.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is almost completely unedited, please lemme know if you spot any mistakes!


End file.
